The chief executive of a software company in Germany has been found liable for copyright infringement after software developed by the company was amended in an open source environment to allow copyright-protected material to be accessed unlawfully.
Appwork created "JDownloader2", a download management tool, but allowed any …

Re: Exclsive rights

Re: Exclusive rights

It's an infringement of German automobile legislation to exceed posted limits on the road, yet both BMW and Mercedes allow their vehicles to be modified to be able to exceed those (including the removal of ECU imposed maximum speed restrictions), and resold with their badges still on them (hello Alpina and Brabus).

So, is that the responsibility of the Alpina CEO (for modifying), or the BMW CEO (for allowing it to stay badged and therefore presented as a BMW product) that their products can be used for unlawful purposes? Rather than, say, the responsibility of the driver of the vehicle for deliberately using it in an unlawful manner...

Re: Exclsive rights

So is the enforcement of penalties. The offending party should have the opportunity to resolve the situation in the quickest and least disruptive manner possible. Something like a C&D letter or a DMCA takedown request should have been an option.

Re: Nicho

You seem to be mistaking stealing, where you deprive the owner of their property (a criminal act), with copyright infringement, where an unauthorised copy is made but the original is still there (a civil act).

You also seem not to have comprehended that this was about saving a copy of a video stream that, I am guessing, you already paid for. So it is not even depriving the copyright holder of revenue, but simply doing what is perfectly legal in other cases (see the judgement(s) in respect to the original VCR use) and what most people see as "fair use".

Re: Nicho

(2) You are guessing or you know ? I ask because I suspect that you don't get the rights to the video stream in perpetuity, I am willing to bet the grant is for a one time use (but confess I'm not sure).

(3) What most people see as 'fair use' isn't what's (in the US at least) legally considered fair use.

Re: Exclsive rights

Re: Exclusive rights

Well, and enabling a user to bypass technical contraints on copyright infringement probably does not result in many instances in which the theft, so called, of intellectual property, so called, results in actual loss of a sale. So the "theft" is in the same hypothetical class as the injury that might result from overspeed.

Re: Exclusive rights

Re: Nicho

I think this is to miss the point. Stealing is stealing whether civil or criminal. However the offence here seems to be the creation of code to facilitate access to copyright material by others. That is like prosecuting Yale for permitting locksmiths in the high street to create keys that could open any door.

Is appearing as their own work the only problem?

If so, the just need to change to a Free Software license that requires changing the name, à la Firefox.

_If_, on the other hand, that is insufficient, and simply having someone insert objectionable material into your Free Software program is enough to get you into trouble, proprietary wins. (At least in Germany. How long will it take the RIAA to put that one into law in the U.S.?)

Amended

So, essentially, the company allowed third party developers to insert code into their commercial product without checking what the the new code did (or deliberately chose to ignore).

Third party developers could have inserted all sorts of malware or other nefarious things into their commercial product, leaving copyright infringement as the least of the companies worries. Sounds like the CEO probably got off lightly.

The moral of the story is - if it's in your name, make sure you know what you're putting your name to!

A little too open for Germany perhaps...

The seem to have had very lax commit policies for their source repository and include the results of that in their nightly bleeding edge package builds. This appears to be their community or "cooker" environment rather than their commercial product which is vetted more thoroughly.

not true..

I've been using their software for years, there is a request during the installation process to install some toolbar but it's clearly marked and not misleading.

I find it to be one of the best pieces of software around, even if they're facing a never ending battle against sites updating their authentication methods (which is probably one reason they allow cutting edge code to be delivered to the public quickly)

I've had more malware from the uTorrent installer (which these days is highly misleading, and can end up installed if you so much as twitch after clicking the first accept due to intentionally sneaky button placement during the install) That Yahoo search replacement thing it installs eats CPU cycles for no apparent reason despite claiming to 'simply' monitor the default search settings / homepage of your browser and reset them to Yahoo if anything changes them. I've actually started avoiding (read BLOCKING) all things Yahoo as a result of that.

As for the ruling, if there's any sanity left in this world it will be quickly overturned.

@h3

They install malware (Not just toolbars the impossible to remove without a reinstall variety).

Never came across those ... I do have kids using a PC installing all types of toolbars on a weekly basis. Do, do you mind to name the toolbars in question ? Will install it tonight as soon as I get home and will post instructions tomorrow on how to remove.

I had removed one homepage-hijacking thingy that was very well installed ... it added itself into the

"Command\Open" keys, such as Hkey_Local_Machine\Software\Classes\html\Command\Open and the equivalent for firefox, chrome, ie programs (do not have windows at hand, cannot check full path, sorry). Appended itself into all browser shortcuts across the system, as well.

Been removing viri from Windows boxen since 2000. Have not yet come across a virus for Mac/Linux, though I have heard myths.

I recently also wrote a little tool to find root kits ... pretty simple, actually ... full drive listing from cmd.exe's dir and the same from VBS, then diff the two - cmd.exe will list some dirs that VBS does not - those are the root kits ... ;-) If you are computer savvy, you can do the same from a linux livecd, diff the lot and sort.

Of course, you need to know the NTFS file system, windows directory hierarchy etc to be able to find suspects ...

Ok then... I buy a Dyson vacuum cleaner... modify the crevice tool into a point and use it to stab someone to death... will I be sharing a prison cell with jimbob Dyson as he didn't build in enough safeguards to prevent this sort of misuse?

I'm not a fan of piracy, but surely the original author can only be liable for his work... if this encryption bypass tool was in the code... so be it... but if someone just added it then its the actions of the second author...

Maybe that example is a little OTT... how about someone takes an open source Linux bistro, adds code to trigger a bomb... is the original author accountable?

I think if it was in their release code, they should be liable for it, if it was in a nightly automated build then they should not be. Either way, wouldnt removing the protection system from this tools just be the same as any file sharing tool that doesnt have protection, like a bittorrent client for example? I don't see why they were liable anyway given how many tools just don't have protection to start with and get into no trouble.